Newly Unearthed Video Shows Brian Houston Calling Pedophile Father’s Serial Rapes ‘Pretty Serious Mistakes’
In early 1999, whispers of unspeakable deeds began to circulate among the leaders of the Assembly of God in New Zealand (AoGNZ). The central figure of these allegations was none other than Frank Houston, the senior pastor of the Sydney Christian Life Centre and father to Brian Houston. The claim? Frank, a veritable rock star of the Australian church scene, had sexually assaulted a young boy, a certain Brett Sengstock, back in the 1970s. The church’s response? A clandestine meeting and a decision to sweep the shocking confession under the ecclesiastical rug.
Frank’s career as a church leader abruptly ended, and he transitioned into an itinerant pastoral role, even spreading his influence abroad. Meanwhile, Brian took over the reins of the SCLC, later rebranding it as Hillsong Church in 2001.
The year 1999 marked a turning point for Brian. He eventually learned of his father’s dark past and, once confirmed, revoked his credentials, resulting in him ceasing public ministry. However, the church’s leadership remained tight-lipped, granting Frank a generous severance package and keeping the whole thing from public view.
Expecting that the news of Frank’s credentials being revoked would eventually surface, AOGNZ prepared a statement, ambiguously citing ‘serious moral failure’ as the cause for Frank’s departure if and only if they are ever asked about it.
Over the next few years, whispers of Frank’s stripped credentials began to seep into the press. The public learned of his ‘moral failing,’ and Brian confirmed in a 2002 sermon that his father wouldn’t serve as an AOG pastor due to a ‘moral failing’ thirty years prior.
Yet, the true extent of Frank’s crimes remained concealed, known only to the upper echelons of AOG leadership. Speculations ran rampant. Some theorized an affair, others a financial sin. Some hinted at homosexuality, while others were left clueless. The lack of clarity allowed Frank to remain an honored figure within the charismatic movement for years after the initial action in 1999.
In an unexpected twist of events, it came to light that Peter Fowler, one of Houston’s victims, had already stepped into the open. In January 2002, the papers splashed the sordid tale of Frank, the pedophile who had preyed on Fowler during his time in New Zealand. The ‘moral failure’ label suddenly took on a more sinister hue – it was sexual abuse of a minor.
Like a crafty magician pulling the wool over the audience’s eyes, Brian Houston let the assumption that Fowler was the subject of the ‘serious moral failing’ from decades past go unchallenged. He deftly released a statement, weaving a narrative that distanced the heinous acts from Hillsong in Australia and planted them firmly in New Zealand.
“Let me remind you that the issues relating to my father, Frank Houston, happened over thirty years ago while he was a pastor in New Zealand. They are in no way related to Hillsong church.”
It was a carefully constructed lie. Brian was well aware of the multiple victims, one of whom, Brett Sengstock, had been molested by his father on Australian soil. He knew Brett as intimately as one knows their guilty conscience. Back in 1999, Frank had attempted to buy Brett’s forgiveness with a $10,000 bribe facilitated by Brian in a McDonald’s lobby. A signed napkin served as the ‘receipt’ of this transaction, which was, in reality, a desperate attempt to buy his silence.
A decade slipped by, shrouded in silence, with Hillsong still peddling the narrative of a single New Zealand victim from thirty years ago. In a 2010 Hillsong conference video unearthed by The Framework, Brian Houston’s description of his father’s actions raised more than a few eyebrows:
“You all know, my parents were church pastors, and well, my dad…he made some pretty serious mistakes.”
In a blistering critique of this message, The Framework’s Jake Elliot writes:
“A mistake is hitting ‘Send’ on an unfinished text. That’s a mistake. A ‘pretty serious mistake’ is sending an email to the entire office. Serially raping children isn’t a ‘mistake’ or a ‘pretty serious mistake.’ It’s a crime.”
When these words slipped out of Brian Houston’s mouth, the public was under the impression that Frank Houston had molested a single child in New Zealand in the 1970s. In stark contrast, Houston knew his father was a serial rapist who had violated at least eight children in at least two countries.
The full extent of this horror would only be revealed during the 2014 Royal Commission investigation of Brian Houston, which revealed nearly twenty victims, and likely man more unreported.
Not only was it revealed that Houston had kept quiet about Brett’s abuse when he discovered it in 1999, but through this investigation the media and the country, which already find Hillsong and Houston to be polarizing figures, along with church congregations, discovered for the first time that there was an Australian victim. This was a bombshell, leading many former congregants left to wonder if their child was ever molested by the elder Houston.
This silence, this failure to report the abuse, is what landed Houston on trial. He faces up to five years in prison if convicted, and the verdict is set to be announced any day now.